Episode 3: Odd Met Beneath the Witless Stars Above

“ODD MET BENEATH THE WITLESS STARS ABOVE”

Triangle Episode 3

by Poul Anderson

1 INT. MESS DECK – USS ENTERPRISE – DAY

STILES is standing in the middle of the room, others are watching standing and from tables.

STILES (singing)

We have served this selfsame gun;

Quarterdeck division,

Sponger I and loader you

Through the whole commission.

Long we’ve sailed on the rolling sea,

Now we’re bound for home, Jack!

Don’t forget your old shipmates,

Rally, rally, rally, rally, rye-eye-oh!

KENNEDY (singing)

Now we soar like whaler’s dream

Stalking through the high sea,

Stars whose names were never sung

By the bards of ‘Stronomy!

ALL (singing)

Long we’ve sailed on the rolling sea,

Now we’re bound for home, Jack!

Don’t forget your old shipmates,

Rally, rally, rally, rally, rye-eye-oh!

SOMEONE (singing)

Serving glad our gracious queen,

Enterprise, explorer!

Hide, ye strangeness, as ye may

We will find you for her!

ALL (singing)

Long we’ve sailed on the rolling sea,

Now we’re bound for home, Jack!

Don’t forget your old shipmates,

Rally, rally, rally, rally, rye-eye-oh!

(All laugh, break up into conversations.)

PELTIER

All I ask is a tall ship, Thark – and a star to steer her by.

THARK

Should have fought harder for that promotion, then, huh, sir?

PELTIER

We’re better off with Bader as lead pilot anyway. Piloting’s all he does. Poor fellow – with all our knowledge, I can’t believe there’s nothing we can do to repair his legs.

THARK

Then we’d have him kicking butt on the ground, too. Hm.

MIRA ROMAINE

Sergeant Thark, we need you in Costuming again.

THARK

Look, I have a thick neck. It hasn’t gotten any thicker since the last time …

PELTIER

How are my hose coming?

MIRA ROMAINE

Brighter and more colorful, just as you asked.

PELTIER

Outstanding.

2 INT. TRANSPORTER ROOM – DAY

CHURKIN is behind the controls. Enter PELTIER, THARK, RAMIREZ, BOONE, HANNAH, RIVA, and AZUNDERKAR, dressed in Elizabethan garb.

RAMIREZ

Ole! En garde! Stand and deliver, varlet!

THARK

Someone gave Ramirez a sword. (Spits) This oughta be interesting.

BOONE (holds up a powder horn)

Are we sure the natives don’t have breechloaders? Maybe they’re super-rare, but a rich guy could have one.

HANNAH

We’re not sure of much. We have visual only, no radio. But we see cannons, and something that is probably a musket.

AZUNDERKAR

If we find even one rifle, Boone, I can run you up a copy.

RAMIREZ

Who needs guns! One shot and you’re helpless for sixty seconds! Somebody get this man a sword!

RIVA

You’re liking this entirely too much.

MIRA ROMAINE

Major, here’s a wimple for your ears. We used T’Pon as a model.

RIVA

My ears aren’t Vulcanoid.

MIRA ROMAINE

Of course they’re not.

CHURKIN

Leave your communicators svitched on. The natives don’t have radio, so they von’t notice. And I can bim you up vith chust two seconds’ varning.

AZUNDERKAR

We have to leave ‘em on anyway, to run the translator program. Why I am I going down again? I’m not a xeno-anthro expert.

PELTIER

Never can tell, Azunderkar. Besides, we always need a red shirt. Heh.

RIVA

I think the Corps has that covered, Commander. And none of us caught a bullet last time, either.

HANNAH

Redshirts these days don’t try as hard. Not like the old days.

RIVA

Yes, well, those redshirts aren’t with us any more, are they?

RAMIREZ

Ladies, ladies! It’s a late-medieval planet. We’re not going to stay long enough to get the plague or be burned at the stake, and they’re armed with swords and muskets. What’s the worst that could happen?

3 EXT. VILLAGE STREETS – PLANET IOTIA TWO – DAY

The party beams down between thatch-roofed cottages. A steeple rises on the right.

BOONE

Nobody saw us. So far, so good.

PELTIER

Hannah, give us a medieval-looking scan?

HANNAH

In these skirts? I could hide a mass spectrometer in here … forty humanoids within fifty meters. Ten or more to a room. Maybe it’s winter?

THARK

They got warm winters, then. My makeup itches already.

AZUNDERKAR

Roger that. And this hat itches my antennae.

THARK

Heads up. On the left.

Enter VILLAGER on the left.

VILLAGER

Good morrow, soldiers brave of aspect grim!

Good morrow, gentle bride of Christ Enthroned.

Good morrow, gentles, late arriv’d among

We humble folk of Bantry-on-the-Wold.

PELTIER

Good morrow, gentle sir. We are travelers from across the sea.

RIVA (whispers)

Am I the nun, or is that you?

HANNAH (whispers)

I don’t think their nuns dress like this. Maybe he means the wimple.

VILLAGER

Beg pardon, leader of these cavaliers,

But what you say falls oddly on my ears.

PELTIER

We speak … eth … differently where we cometh from. Uh, how would you sayeth that?

VILLAGER

Ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum.

The humble iamb alternates its stress,

As late the Grand Historicker decreed,

Who told of Hamlet, Rom’yo and Macbeth.

(He gestures to the steeple, upon which is a heroic-sized statue, not of Christ, but of William Shakespeare.)

VILLAGER

Behold, the Bard who traveled hence,

To give us speech which all here reverence.

HANNAH

Cultural contamination. Again!

(Three witches appear)

WITCH

Hail, Marcus Peltier!

WITCH

Hail, Peltier, Captain of the Enterprise!

WITCH

Hail, Peltier, Grand Admiral of all the Star Fleet!

PELTIER

At least it isn’t Nazis this time …

ZOOM on face of the Shakespeare statue.

DRAMATIC MUSIC RISES.

FADE TO CREDITS.